Kundan Lal Saigal

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Kundan Lal Saigal (right) with Jamuna in Devdas (1935)

Kundan Lal Saigal (often as KL Saigal ; Hindi : कुन्दन लाल सहगल , Kundan Lāl Sahagal ; born April 4, 1904 in Nawa Shahar Jammu , † January 18, 1947 in Jalandhar , Punjab ) was an Indian singer and actor. He is considered the first superstar of Hindi film : his portrayal of the title role in PC Baruas Devdas set the standard for play in Indian musical melodramas and he inspired later Indian film music singers such as Mukesh , Talat Mahmood , Kishore Kumar and Kozhikode Abdul Qadir with his singing .

biography

As a child, Saigal already appeared as Sita in Ramlila performances. He did not receive any formal acting or singing training, but he intoned poems by Mirza Ghalib in his own thumri-like style. A first record with recordings from him was released in the early 1930s by the Indian Gramophone Company. However, Saigal worked full-time as a typewriter seller when BN Sircar hired him in 1932 because of his singing skills for the film company New Theaters in Calcutta .

Kundan Lal Saigal made his film debut in 1932 in three Urdu films by Premankur Atorthy . In the years that followed, he appeared mostly in the studio's Hindi films directed by Debaki Bose , Nitin Bose and PC Barua , including the title role of New Theaters' first major Hindi hit: Nitin Boses Chandidas (1934). His singing style was trained during this time under the film music composer Rai Chand Boral , later he also sang pieces by Timir Baran and Pankaj Mullick there . With Devdas (1936), in whose Hindi version he played the title role, Saigal achieved his outstanding popularity status. In the Bengali version he played only a small part - his first appearance in a film of that language - and sang two movie songs, also in PV Rao's Tamil version from 1936. In Pujarin , the Hindi remake of the first Bengali sound film Dena Paona ( 1931), KL Saigal was seen in another Saratchandra-Chattopadhyay film adaptation after Devdas .

Kundan Lal Saigal stayed with New Theaters until 1941 and, with his popularity as a performer and singer in both the Bengali and Hindi versions of the films, was the dominant star of the film company. In 1938 he starred and sang, directed by Nitin Bose, in Dushman - a film made as part of Lady Linlithgow's (wife of the new governor general of India ) anti- tuberculosis immunization program at the end of the government's Tuberculosis Fund to mobilize the population - and in Phani Majumdar Street Singer directorial debut . In Zindagi (1940), after Devdas , Saigal appeared for the second time alongside Jamuna , the wife of director PC Barua. In this film he played a vagabond who lives with a woman who has run away from her husband. With the role in Parichay (1941) he shaped the stereotype of the romanticized artist neglected in love, as it was successfully taken up by Guru Dutt in Pyaasa .

In 1942 Kundan Lal Saigal went to Bombay and worked from then on for Chandulal Shah's film company Ranjit Movietone . His first film for this studio was Bhakta Surdas by Chaturbhuj Doshi . In the role of court musician Tansen in Jayant Desai 's film of the same name from 1943, Saigal reached the first high point of his career in Bombay film productions. In Hemchandra Chunder's World War I love film Meri Bahen , which was based in particular on Saigal's interpretations of the film songs by Pankaj Mullick, he stood again in front of the camera for New Theaters in 1944. He had his last film success in AR Kardar's costume drama Shahjehan (1946).

Saigal died in 1947 at the age of only 42. In 1955, the film Amar Saigal was directed by Nitin Bose and about the life of the actor and singer, in which numerous songs from Saigal's films can be seen. Of Saigal's 185 sound recordings, 142 songs are from films, the others are bhajans and ghazals .

Filmography

  • 1932: Mohabbat Ke Aansoo
  • 1932: Zinda Lash
  • 1932: Subah Ka Sitara
  • 1933: Puran Bhakt
  • 1933: Rajrani Meera
  • 1933: Yahudi Ki Ladki
  • 1933: Dulari Bibi
  • 1934: Chandidas
  • 1934: Daku Mansoor
  • 1934: Mohabbat Ki Kasauti
  • 1935: Karwan-e-Hayat
  • 1935: Devdas / Devdas (Bengali / Hindi)
  • 1935: Bijoya
  • 1936: Karodpati
  • 1936: Pujarin
  • 1937: Didi / President (Bengali / Hindi)
  • 1938: Desher Mati / Dharti Mata (Bengali / Hindi)
  • 1938: Street Singer / Saathi (Hindi / Bengali)
  • 1938: Dushman / Jiban Maran (Hindi / Bengali)
  • 1940: Zindagi
  • 1941: Parichay / Lagan (Bengali / Hindi)
  • 1942: Bhakta Surdas
  • 1943: Tansen
  • 1944: Bhanwara
  • 1944: Meri Bahen
  • 1945: Kurukshetra
  • 1945: Tadbir
  • 1946: Omar Khayyam
  • 1946: Shahjehan
  • 1947: Parwana

Footnotes

  1. ↑ Jewels of Jalandhar: Kundan Lal Saigal ( Memento of the original dated December 30, 2008 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / jalandhari.com
  2. ^ Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema , p. 203
  3. ↑ Note: The female roles were also embodied by male actors in India at that time.
  4. ↑ Note: In the early days of Indian sound films (1930s and 1940s) it was still common for the actors to sing themselves.
  5. ^ Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema , p. 275
  6. ↑ Note: The portrayal of an unmarried couple living together was a taboo in Indian films at that time.

literature

  • Raghava R. Menon: KL Saigal: The Pilgrim of the Swara , New Delhi 1978.
  • Ashish Rajadhyaksha, Paul Willemen: Encyclopaedia of Indian Cinema , p. 203.

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Saigal, Kundan Lal
ALTERNATIVE NAMES Saigal, KL
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Indian singer and actor
DATE OF BIRTH April 4, 1904
PLACE OF BIRTH Nawa Shahar , Jammu
DATE OF DEATH January 18, 1947
Place of death Jalandhar , Punjab